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Why belonging? Why geography?As we begin writing this guest editorial an e-mail alert informs us of a call for papers for the Social and Cultural Geography Study Group of the RGS-IBG for 2009 which seeks papers``interested in the way the world works to produce social and cultural difference, engaging with key social science debates concerning identity, subjectivity, citizenship and belonging.'' This e-mail is indicative of the growth of recent research in geography which draws on belonging as a key concept. Sometimes, belonging is at the centre of the analysis but, more often, it is used in a way that implies a common understanding of what belonging is and why belonging is important. Needless to say, no such common understanding exists. Indeed, with the proliferation of belonging in human geography come the inevitable questions: what is belonging, how does one belong, and, importantly, what work does belonging as a concept do? In the introduction to this theme issue on``Geographies of belonging'' we reflect on the notion of belonging, explore the work that belonging does in contemporary social science, particularly human geography, and outline the contributions of the theme issue.Belonging is mobilised in a range of spheres within human geography. Indeed, it is clearly possible to belong in many different ways at many different scales. Belonging has formal and informal aspects, implied, for example, by ideas of formal and informal citizenship and civic identity (

Public housing places are often examined in academic literature through an entry point of social exclusion. The entry point of this paper is, in contrast, belonging. In public housing, belonging is not guaranteed by the provision of a dwelling. Belonging is an active process created by tenants through interactions within households, with neighbours, and with housing providers. Central to these interactions, and the primary focus of this paper, are interactions based on care. The paper draws on results from a survey of public housing tenants in inner Newcastle, Australia. It is argued that a range of forms of care were critical to developing belonging for public housing tenants. The entry point of belonging allows an appreciation of the active of role of tenants in creating their everyday lives and the caring possibilities of public housing tenancy. The care needs and bonds of public housing tenants are explored, as well as perceptions of care deficits that make the achievement of belonging more challenging.

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This paper explores the increasingly important role of 'social mix' in the management practices of the NSW Department of Housing. Social mix is a policy response to the many perceived social, cultural and economic problems related to the concentration of public tenants within larger housing estates. Social mix involves the integration and assimilation of public housing tenants into areas dominated by private home ownership and private rental. Such policies are based upon the belief that social mix has the ability to alter many of these problems simply through the presence of a 'community'. However, this paper questions the normative construction of homeowners as possessing a 'community' which, by implication, will be passed on to public tenants. Through an in-depth casestudy, it is shown that 'community', as constructed by social mix policy rhetoric, may in fact further disadvantage public tenants through processes of othering, stigmatisation and oppression, which operate outside these traditional understandings of community. In addition, this research shows that, rather than increased community integration, it is the physical function of neighbourhood and its direct role in service provision which is the most advantageous constituent of social mix for public housing tenants.